Williamson County commissioners are set to vote Tuesday on an incentive deal that would pay back 65 percent of property taxes to Apple over 15 years so that the tech giant could expand its operations in north Austin. Apple announced Thursday that it would spend $1 billion to build a second campus in Austin and create 5,000 new jobs. The proposed site for the 133-acre building is located on the Williamson County side of the city on an undeveloped property near Parmer Lane and McNeil Road. According to the proposed contract shared by Williamson County Friday, the incentive deal would...

The idolatry of failed Senate candidate Beto O'Rourke continues unabated in Politico despite the mockery of such an attitude in their own publication. The latest outbreak of Beto worship is actually quite bizarre since Politico National Correspondent David Siders assures his liberal readers that while O'Rourke might come off as playing fair, he is actually a duplicitous soul who is quite capable of fighting dirty. Siders reassures nervous liberals about how O'Rourke will hold up in competition with other Democrat presidential candidates in the December 17 Politico by telling them that inside his feigned cloak of political saintliness, there lies...

Autopsies were ordered after the skeletal remains of a 75-year-old woman and her 41-year old daughter were found Tuesday tucked into beds in a home in Lacy Lakeview, north of Waco. A family member who came into town from out of state made the gruesome discovery Tuesday after getting no response at the door at the home in the 200 block of Avenue G and crawling through a window, Lacy Lakeview police Chief John Truehitt said Friday. Truehitt identified the women as Chiyo Mahon and her daughter, Kaurie Mahon. The two had been dead for months, he said... A second...

Why should the U.S. build a better wall on the southern border? House Majority Whip Steve Scalise offered a clear and candid rationale during a Fox News appearance this week, telling host Mark Levin that 10 known terrorists are captured each day trying to breach the border. U.S. Customs and Border Protections also informed Congress that 3,029 people were apprehended in one day this month — deeming the occurrence a crisis. Meanwhile, 21 percent of all potential migrants — an astonishing 158 million people — would like to come live in America if they could, according to a Gallup analysis,...

AUSTIN — Three McNeil High School students are each facing a class C misdemeanor citation for stealing animal crackers and a jar of pretzels from the staff lounge...According to the school district, McMillan's 15-year-old son and his two friends entered the unlocked school building during the school's basketball game and made their way into the staff lounge, which requires a badge. A custodian had left the door propped open. "They were like, 'Let's go in. I think it would be cool if we go in and get it.' Just being dumb teenagers, not doing what they're supposed to do," McMillan...

Ohio Congressman Warren Davidson thinks crowdfunding may provide a solution to the controversial proposal of building a wall on the Mexican border. And, perhaps more notably, he suggested using a cryptocurrency to do so. During an interview with NPR’s Steve Inskeep, the U.S. lawmaker explained that he has already proposed letting the American public pay for the wall, which is opposed by Democrats but mades up a key aspect of President Donald Trump’s list of 2016 campaign promises. In particular, Davidson told Inskeep, he has suggested a private funding program wherein “the American people, or whomever should choose to donate,”...

In a ruling sure to be appealed to Supreme Court, Texas court says the ACA, also known as Obamacare, can no longer stand without the penalty against the uninsured. A federal judge in Texas struck down the Affordable Care Act on Friday night, ruling that former President Barack Obama's signature domestic legislation has fallen down like a losing game of "Jenga." But the White House said that with the ruling expected to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, the law will remain in place for now.

(Bloomberg) -- Obamacare was struck down by a Texas federal judge in a ruling that casts uncertainty on insurance coverage for millions of U.S. residents. The decision Friday finding the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional comes just before the end of a six-week open enrollment period for the program in 2019 and underscores a divide between Republicans who have long sought to invalidate the law and Democrats who fought to keep it in place. U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth agreed with a coalition of Republican states led by Texas that he had to eviscerate the Affordable Care Act,...

Now that three men have been found dead near water in Downtown Austin in recent months, social media posts have speculated the deaths could be related, but Austin Police say there’s no evidence of that... Police are still awaiting toxicology reports on some cases but confirmed none of the recent deaths have been connected, stating some were simply just accidents or overdoses. Recently, 25-year-old Martin Gutierrez was found dead near Lady Bird Lake after disappearing on Nov. 19. He was last seen during a night out on Rainey Street. In October, 25-year-old Christopher White was found dead in the Colorado...

How shallow are liberal journalists? Ted Cruz's new beard looks really good and Esquire managing editor Ben Boskovich is upset about that. See, he finds it easier to hate the clean-shaven Cruz and now that the Texas senator is looking better in his opinion, that has thrown Boskovich for a loop. Despite his continuing hate for Cruz's conservative politics, Boskovich now sounds like a fan boy of his appearance. His conflicting attitudes is reflected in the title of his December 12 article, "Damnit, Ted Cruz's Beard Looks Tolerable Now." This conflict continues in the subtitle: "His greatest political opponent has always been...

<p>SEATTLE -- Southwest Airlines says a Dallas-bound flight returned to Seattle last weekend because a human heart was left on board.</p>
<p>The Seattle Times reports that Flight 3606 arrived in Seattle from Sacramento, California. Someone forgot to unload the heart before the plane left for Dallas, and the captain announced over Idaho they were turning back.</p>

Apple announced Thursday that it will open a new campus in Austin, Texas, where it estimates about 15,000 jobs will be created across a variety of fields including engineering and finance. The tech giant said in a statement that it would spend $1 billion to build the campus in north Austin, at a location less than a mile from existing Apple facilities. A 133-acre facility will initially employ 5,000 workers, the company said, adding that the planned expansion is predicted to make Apple the largest employer in the city. “Apple is among the world’s most innovative companies and an avid...

(Reuters) - The state of Texas on Tuesday executed an inmate convicted of shooting a man to death and sexually assaulting his wife after trying to rob the newly married couple on the campus of a community college near Dallas 25 years ago. Alvin Braziel, 43, was pronounced dead at 7:19 p.m. local time, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. He was executed by lethal injection in the state's death chamber in Huntsville. Asked by the warden if he had any last words before he was put to death, Braziel expressed thanks to "all those overseas, Italy...

Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro on Wednesday launched a presidential exploratory committee, a significant step toward mounting a presidential bid in 2020. Castro said he would make an announcement about his plans on January 12 in Texas. Castro's decision to form an exploratory committee, which is often seen as a formality before starting a presidential campaign and allows him to start raising money, gives him a jumpstart in what's expected to be a crowded Democratic field, which already consists of two declared candidates -- Rep. John Delaney of Maryland and Richard Ojeda, a former congressional candidate in...

For the first time since the 2018-midterm elections, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with President Trump at the White House Tuesday. Their meeting was originally supposed to be closed press, but that all changed when the White House press pool was invited into the Oval Office to broadcast their remarks. President Trump started the meeting by thanking Pelosi and Schumer for showing up and made his case for additional border security. "I am proud to shut down the government over border security," Trump said. "I will take the mantle." "They're pouring into our...

President Donald Trump sought Tuesday to pressure Democratic congressional leaders into supporting his demand for billions of dollars to build his promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, threatening to have the military build it “if Democrats do not give us the votes to secure our Country.” Trump tweeted the threat hours before Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi were to meet with Trump at the White House in an effort to avert a partial government shutdown on Dec. 21, when funding for some agencies is scheduled to expire. In a series of tweets Tuesday, Trump...

Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the presumed incoming chairman for the House Armed Services Committee, voiced his extreme displeasure after the Department of Defense extended the deployment of active-duty service members on the U.S.-Mexico border. They will stay at the border until January 31.The Department of Homeland Security requested the extension due to the “ongoing threat” of large, and sometimes violent, migrant caravans.“I continue to strongly question the deployment of U.S. military service members at our southern border. Furthermore, the decision to extend this deployment to the end of January 2019 is not a responsible use of Department of Defense resources...

U.S. Border Patrol agents stopped 12 smuggling operations and seized nearly two tons of marijuana worth over $1.5 million during a weekend crackdown, officials with Customs and Border Patrol wrote in a press release Monday. On Friday, agents working near Mission, Texas, saw "smugglers utilize a raft filled with bundles of marijuana cross the Rio Grande," officials wrote. On the Texas side of the river, they loaded up a Ford F-150 pick up truck with the pot. "As mobile units responded to the area, the vehicle fled at a high rate of speed," officials wrote. When agents stopped the truck,...

Former GOP Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.) on Sunday said he believes the Democratic Party could win in 2020 if they pick someone "unexpected" as their party's presidential nominee. Santorum, asked if there were any potential Democratic candidates he was afraid of, pointed to previous presidential contests, saying all of the Democratic candidates who won were "not the favorite" at the time. "When the Democrats win, they pick someone unexpected or someone who’s not the favorite," Santorum, a CNN analyst, said on CNN's "State of the Union." "[Former Presidents] Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter," he listed. "When they pick [failed...